Android: NetRunner is set in the fictional Android entertainment world. The whole world is a cyberpunk sci-fi world. How it works?

The word “punk” comes from punk rock, which is a rock music genre developed between 1974 and 1976. The term ”punk” was first used in relation to rock music by some American critics to describe garage bands and their devotees. Punk bands typically use short or fast-paced songs, with hard-edged melodies and singing style, stripped-sown instrumentation, so people use punk rock to express their emotions, and often with political, anti-establishment lyrics. They took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream. So we can almost see what’s the feeling of “cyberpunk”. Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting, which often center on a conflict among artificial intelligences and megacorporations. That future is often called the antithesis of the generally utpian visions. Megacprporations, cyberspace and hackers are always the basic setting in such stories.

After I play more NetRunner, I started to go deep into the game. I was always mixing up the TCG, CCG, and LCGs. NetRunner is a LCG - Living Card Game, which means besides the core set of the deck you buy the first time, it will continuously sell a small pack of expansion every one or two month, with the specific and same cards in each expansion pack. It is a kind of CCG - Collecting Card Game, players need to collect more cards from expansions.

Actually that was the first time I heard about the game Android: NetRunner when my teacher told me that we would play it in class on the Game Design class two month ago. I searched on the website, and it seems that it’s a very great new Trading Card Game, like Hearthstone. But I didn’t get any sense until I got the game - There are so many cards with so many characters which excited me greatly, and the nice punk art style also encourages me to explore the game deeply.

Game Overview

This game is about the story between corporations and hackers. It’s actually a Living Card Game. Not like the TCG games I played before, in NetRunner the two players play different characters - corporation and hacker. Corporation cannot play against corporation, and hacker cannot play against hacker.